Twenty-four months suspended prison sentence was requested by the public prosecutor of Montpellier, against Mohamed Haouas. The right pillar of Montpellier Hérault Rugby and the France rugby team was prosecuted before the criminal court for acts of violence in meetings committed on January 1, 2014, almost nine and a half years earlier. He was then 19 years old. He now has 29. The verdict was reserved for June 30.
The court judged the attack on a nightclub owner by a dozen young men, most of them from the Petit-Bard district, after apparently violent behavior against the victim’s daughter. , who was waiting outside. A scenario that does not recognize Mohamed Haouas, who explains that the victim would have hit him at random because he was next to this young girl and would have taken out a handgun which he would have used twice in the air. An explanation confirmed by the other defendants, but by no witness of the scene. If the video from the cameras of the bakery does not allow to judge the origin of the facts, it shows on the other hand the deluge of blows which falls on the victim, absent at the hearing. A lynching in which the one who has since become a professional rugby player is the main protagonist.
“I haven’t had any problems with the law for ten years”
“We can blame justice for a certain slowness. It is obvious that this case should have been tried in 2014, or even in 2015. But in no case in 2023. But it also shows us how much we can get out of it, underlines the public prosecutor. At the material time, with regard to this video, I would have bet several tickets that this boy that we see on the video would have had a course of delinquency, but absolutely not what he has become today . However, the passage of time does not dissolve responsibilities. Only the court can do that. They will be judged according to the seriousness and the personality at the time of the facts and their personality today”.
“His personal, family and professional development is extremely positive, underlines the lawyer of the rugby player, Marc Gallix. I cannot make the same requisitions today as those I would have made if this case had been judged immediately after the fact. The prosecution’s indictment is very clever. »
“I want to move on”
A year ago, the Hérault international was given an eighteen-month suspended prison sentence for his involvement in burglaries in 2014, when he had not yet started his professional career.
“I want to move on. I have had no problem with the law for ten years, evokes the player, supported at the hearing by Yacouba Camara, another French international from Montpellier. At the time, I was young, I came from a neighborhood, I was not a professional rugby player. It’s all behind me. I made mistakes, but I have the right to a second chance”.
Violence and excuses
At the hearing, the international and the four other defendants (a fifth did not appear before the judge) tried to justify the start of this violence by the presence of a firearm. But he also expressed his apologies. Towards the employees of the bakery, at first, then finally towards the victims as well. “I apologize, I’m sorry, I lost my temper, I was drunk, I was even drunk. I fought but not for nothing… I grew up in a neighborhood, I did stupid things, but it’s over. I am a Muslim, but my son is in a Catholic school with a little Jesus, they call me Maurice…”.
The prosecutor requested for the other defendants sentences of twelve months in prison, all of which were suspended.